President Donald Trump was sworn in today at the U.S. Capitol, returning to the White House after winning a second term in the 2024 election.
The USA TODAY Fact Check Team is monitoring the inauguration ceremony, other addresses from Trump and former Present Joe Biden and reactions from around the country to sort fact from fiction and add context where needed.
Our team uses primary documents, trustworthy nonpartisan sources, data and other research tools to assess the accuracy of claims.
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More: Donald Trump wins the White House. Mark the historic win with a new commemorative book
Social media claim: Trump didn’t place hand on Bible during swearing-in ceremony
“BREAKING: Donald Trump did not place his hand on the Bible as he took the oath of office during his inauguration.” –Occupy Democrats social media post
This claim, from liberal social media account Occupy Democrats and others, appears to be accurate, but this situation is also not without precedent.
ABC News observed that Trump didn’t place his hand on a stack of books held by Melania Trump as Chief Justice John Roberts swore him in as president.
But there’s no constitutional requirement for an incoming president to take the oath of office on a Bible. John Adams took his oath on a law book, for instance, according to the National Constitution Center. Theodore Roosevelt used no book, according to the Government Publishing Office, which notes on its website that the Constitution “does not say what the swearing-in must include.”
According to Article II, Section I, Clause 8 of the Constitution, a president-elect must take this oath before entering office: “I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”
Elsewhere in the Constitution, it is stated that “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
-Andre Byik
Donald Trump claim: Jan. 6 committee deleted records, Pelosi turned down soldiers
“They literally, what they did is they destroyed and deleted all the information, all of the hearings … all of the information on Nancy Pelosi having turned down the offer of 10,000 soldiers (on Jan. 6, 2021).”
Trump and his supporters have made similar claims in the past, but they’re still wrong. Trump spoke at length about the topic in unscripted remarks at Emancipation Hall after he was sworn in as president, repeating several talking points have been repeatedly debunked.
The bipartisan House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol released a more than 800-page report in 2022 that described how Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election fueled the riot. It also released troves of supporting materials, including videos, transcripts of interviews and other court documents.
In August 2023, Rep. Barry Loudermilk, a Republican from Georgia, told Fox News that the committee had failed to properly preserve some of its documents, data and video depositions. But, as Factcheck.org reported, Loudermilk never claimed the committee’s records were destroyed, though Trump alleged that in a social media post at the time.
Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Democrat from Mississippi who chaired the committee, had already written to Loudermilk on July 7, 2023, saying that more than a million records from the committee had been set aside for “publication and archiving.”
There is also no evidence that Trump requested to deploy 10,000 National Guard troops to the Capitol ahead of the Jan. 6, 2021, rally, nor is there evidence that then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi denied such a request, as USA TODAY previously reported. Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, told USA TODAY in 2021 that Pelosi’s office was not contacted about any request for National Guard troops before Jan. 6, 2021, and noted that Pelosi would not have the power to reject that type of request.
Trump also repeated the claim that Pelosi was in charge of Capitol security on Jan. 6, but that’s still wrong. The Capitol Police are in charge of security and are overseen by the Capitol Police Board and committees from the Senate and House of Representatives.
John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesperson, told The Washington Post in 2021 that officials researched Trump’s claim and found “we have no record of such an order being given.”
-Chris Mueller
Donald Trump claim: America has more oil and gas than any other nation
“And we have something no other manufacturing nation will ever have, the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on earth.”
There are a number of ways to say which country has the most oil and gas, and the accuracy of Trump’s claim depends on if you are looking at what is in the ground or what is being extracted.
When it comes to production, he is correct. According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. was the leading producer of crude oil, extracting more than any other country ever has. It also took the title for largest gas producer.
The Energy Institute, which produces an annual statistical report on global energy resources, production and demand, has a different answer when it comes to oil and gas that is considered to be recoverable based on current technology and economic conditions. Its 2024 report says the U.S. has proven reserves of 68.8 billion barrels. That would make it ninth, behind Canada, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
For natural gas, the U.S. had 445.6 trillion cubic feet of reserves. That places it fifth, behind Russia, Turkmenistan, Iran and Qatar.
-Nate Trela
Donald Trump claim: Panama Canal construction left 38,000 Americans dead
“The United States, I mean think of this, spent more money than ever spent on a project before and lost 38,000 lives in the building of the Panama Canal.”
There were multiple attempts to build the Panama Canal, the vital passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. But while thousands of people died in these efforts, the toll of American deaths does not remotely approach 38,000 lives.
Matthew Parker, author of “Hell’s Gorge: The Battle to Build the Panama Canal,” told the BBC that about 25,000 people died, many from mosquito-borne viruses, in the failed French attempt to build the canal in the 1880s. Parker said “virtually none” was American. Rather, they were largely French and Jamaican, he said.
During the U.S. period of construction from about 1904 to 1914, about 6,000 people died, Parker said in the BBC interview, “almost all of whom were from Barbados.” About 300 Americans died in this effort, he said.
These figures are largely in line with other estimates of the death toll in the efforts to build the canal, which was completed in 1914.
-Andre Byik
Donald Trump claim: Biden’s 2020 election victory was ‘rigged’
“2020, by the way, that election was totally rigged but that’s OK. That was a rigged election.”President Donald Trump won the 2024 election, but that hasn’t stopped him from making false claims about his prior loss. Speaking to supporters in Emancipation Hall immediately after being sworn in as president, Trump once again falsely claimed his 2020 election defeat to former President Joe Biden was “rigged.”
“Had I felt we lost I wouldn’t have (run again), because that’s like the ultimate poll, right, but I knew how well we did, and this time we made it too big to rig,” Trump said.
However, an overwhelming amount of evidence shows former President Joe Biden won the presidency that year with 306 electoral votes. There have been lawsuits, recounts and forensic audits, but no credible evidence of widespread voter fraud has ever been uncovered.
In a statement released shortly after that election, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it was “the most secure in American history,” and there was “no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes or was in any way compromised.”
William Barr, Trump’s own attorney general, also said in early December 2020 that the Justice Department had “not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election.”
Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican at the time, pushed back on Trump’s claim too, saying, “Nothing before us proves illegality anywhere near the massive scale, the massive scale that would have tipped the entire election.”
The Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, when Trump supporters tried to disrupt Congress’ certification of the presidential election results, was predicated by the misguided belief that widespread voter fraud swayed the election in Biden’s favor.
-Chris Mueller
Donald Trump claim: China is operating the Panama Canal
“China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn’t give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
Trump, echoing a claim from December, claimed in his inaugural address that China is operating the Panama Canal, which Panama has repeatedly disputed.
Trump has threatened to have the U.S. take back control of the canal because of what he called “exorbitant” rates charged for using the waterway, which the U.S. built and operated before a treaty transferred control to Panama on Dec. 31, 1999. The Panamanian government controls the canal through the Panama Canal Authority, an 11-member board that oversees the waterway’s maintenance and security.
Canal administrator Ricaurte Vásquez told The Associated Press that a Hong Kong consortium won a bid in 1997 that allows Chinese companies to operate in ports at the ends of the canal. But U.S. and Taiwanese companies also operate ports along the canal, which is open to commerce from all countries, Vásquez said. Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino has said market conditions are used to set passage rates and that China was not influencing the country.
The United States is the canal’s biggest user, accounting for about 75% of canal traffic in fiscal year 2024. China comes in second at 21%.
–Kim Breen
Donald Trump claim: Panama Canal cost more than any other US project at the time
“The United States – I mean, think of this – spent more money (on the Panama Canal) than ever spent on a project before.”
Trump is correct. The Panama Canal, which Trump has repeatedly discussed taking back control of, was the most expensive public works project in U.S. history up until that time, with about $302 million spent on construction between 1903 and 1914, according to a 2006 Harvard Business School study. In 2024 dollars, that’s roughly $9.5 billion.
The U.S. also spent about $40 million to purchase the assets of the New Panama Canal Company and paid Panama’s government about $10 million, the study says. It also built barracks, shore defenses and naval support facilities to defend the canal.
Similarly, the Panama Canal’s website says the project cost the U.S. about $375 million, including the $10 million paid to Panama, the $40 million paid to the company and $12 million for fortifications.
“It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history to that time,” the website says.
Julie Green, a history professor at the University of Maryland, also told PBS in 2014 that the Panama Canal was the “largest public construction project in U.S. history.”
-Chris Mueller
Joe Biden claim: Administration created more jobs than in any other single presidential term
“At home, we’ve created nearly 17 million new jobs — more than any other single administration in a single term.”
This statistic, provided in Biden’s farewell address on Jan. 15, is accurate but omits important context. It’s that high because Biden took office amid massive job losses due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show non-farm employment in December 2024 was up 16.6 million from January 2021, indeed the largest increase in the number of jobs in a single term.
Biden has repeatedly pointed to substantial job growth numbers during his presidency, including in his 2023 State of the Union address. However, there is an important qualifier to the numbers: Biden took office in January 2021 as the nation was down 9.4 million jobs from February 2020, when employers engaged in massive waves of layoffs that would have been unavoidable under almost any policies. The number of jobs is only up 7.2 million since the pre-pandemic peak.
The statistics will also likely be revised in the coming months, as the bureau goes through its benchmarking process.
-Nate Trela
Donald Trump claim: US underwent invasion of ‘criminal aliens’
“We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.”
Trump’s claim plays into the suggestion that immigrants commit crimes at a higher rate than people born in the U.S. But research suggests that isn’t the case.
Immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated compared to the broader U.S.-born population, according to a 2023 study co-authored by Stanford economist Ran Abramitzky.
The study used U.S. Census data and focused on immigrants present in the Census regardless of their legal status and on men between the ages of 18 and 40, according to a news release about the study.
Alex Nowrasteh, vice president for economic and social policy studies at the Cato Institute, examined homicide conviction rates between people who entered the U.S. illegally and native-born Americans in Texas in 2015. He found that those entering illegally had a lower homicide conviction rate (2.4 per 100,000) than native-born Americans (2.8 per 100,000).
Trump promised a slate of executive actions related to immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border. During the 2024 campaign, commentators and social media users misrepresented data from Immigration and Customs Enforcement to claim that thousands of “murderers” and “rapists” entered the U.S. under President Joe Biden’s administration.
However, the data, according to the Homeland Security Department and immigration experts, represented people who entered the U.S. over the last 40 years or longer, not solely those who entered during Biden’s term.
-Andre Byik
Donald Trump claim: ‘Record inflation’ under Biden administration
“Next, I will direct all members of my Cabinet to martial the vast powers at their disposal to defeat what was record inflation and rapidly bring down costs and prices.”
President Donald Trump’s claim in his inaugural address about record inflation during Joe Biden’s presidency is misleading.
The highest year-over-year inflation rate during Biden’s time in office was about 9% in June 2022, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ consumer price index. While that was the highest in about 40 years, inflation rates during the 1970s and 1980s often exceeded 10%, according to Gallup.
Before that, in March 1947, inflation peaked at 19.7% due to a combination of consumer demand, supply shortages and an end to World War II-era price controls.
The highest inflation rate of Trump’s presidency was 2.9% in both June and July 2018. The lowest rate was 0.1% in May 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
–Chris Mueller
Donald Trump claim: He won young voters in a landslide in 2024
“We won the youth vote by 36 points.”
Trump made this claim at a pre-inaugural rally on Jan. 19 while touting the resumption of TikTok’s services in the U.S. The basis for Trump’s claim wasn’t clear, but exit polls from the 2024 election show he lagged behind Vice President Kamala Harris in support from young voters.
Exit poll data from CNN found Harris garnered 54% of the vote from voters age 18-29, compared to 43% for Trump. Harris also led 51% to 47% among voters 30-44.
A Tufts University analysis found Trump made gains among young voters compared to his performance in the 2020 election, but it similarly showed Harris beating Trump 51% to 47% among voters ages 18-29 and 50% to 47% among voters ages 30-44.
Harris defeated Trump 54% to 43% among voters ages 18-29 and 51% to 47% among voters ages 30-44, according to exit poll data from 10 key states published by NBC News.
-Andre Byik
Donald Trump claim: Crime rate has soared in the US
“Crime has gone through the roof.”
Trump’s claim at Sunday’s Washington, D.C., rally doesn’t align with the most recent data.
A report by the FBI released in late September 2024 found violent crime in the U.S. fell for the third straight year in 2023, including murder, rape and assault, as USA TODAY reported. Overall, violent crime went down by 3% compared to 2022, while murder decreased more than 11% and rape dropped by about 9%.
A study by the Council on Criminal Justice examined monthly rates for 12 violent, property and drug crimes in 39 U.S. cities through the first half of 2024 and found there the rate dropped in 2024 for 11 of the 12. The study reported there were 7% fewer reported aggravated assaults and 18% fewer gun assaults compared to the first half of 2023.
The declines follow a sharp increase in crime that happened during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when the country’s murder rate jumped in its largest single-year increase on record. Violent crime then went down slightly in 2021 and again in 2022, according to the FBI.
The Justice Department’s National Crime Victimization Survey for 2023 found the rate of violent victimization in the U.S. was 22.5 victimizations per 1,000 people 12 or older, similar to the 2022 rate. It also notes the “overall decline” in the last three decades of violent victimization, which includes rape or sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault. In 1993, the rate was 79.8 victimizations per 1,000 people.
-Chris Mueller
Where to find our fact checks
In addition to live events like today’s inauguration, the USA TODAY Fact Check Team publishes about 100 checks each month on the most viral and significant claims circulating online. Here’s how to find our work.
A few of our latest fact checks:
Inauguration background: Fact-checking claims about Trump’s Cabinet picks
President Donald Trump’s choices for his Cabinet have been lauded by his supporters, including many Republican lawmakers. But with Senate confirmation hearings underway, many have already faced tough questions about their qualifications for the high-level roles in Trump’s administration.
Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth – a former Fox News host and Army National Guard veteran – was the first to endure a confirmation hearing. He was criticized by multiple Democratic senators who said he wasn’t qualified for the role because of a lack of experience and accusations of sexual assault and alcohol abuse.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s choice for attorney general, said if confirmed it would be her job to “not only keep America safe but restore integrity to (the Justice Department).” Her confirmation hearing included heated exchanges with Democratic senators when she repeatedly refused to acknowledge that former President Joe Biden won the 2020 election, though she did say she accepted that he was the current president.
Bondi wasn’t Trump’s first choice for the role – that was former Florida Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, who dropped out after facing accusations that he paid women for sex and had sex with a minor.
Trump’s selection of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services prompted criticism of Kennedy’s history of spreading health-related misinformation, including the long-debunked claim that vaccines are linked to autism.
Throughout the confirmation process, misinformation has spread online about Trump’s nominees – both about who they are and what their policies might be if they’re confirmed.
Here are some of the claims USA TODAY has debunked about Trump’s nominees:
-Chris Mueller
How we pick and research fact checks
Ever wonder how fact-checkers do their work? We’ve got you covered.
Check out our process explainer to see how we pick claims, research them and edit them. This includes a rundown of how we cover live events like tonight’s debate.
And if you’ve ever wondered who fact-checks the fact-checkers, you might want to read this op-ed explaining our emphasis on transparency. Because the answer is you! We use the format and approach precisely so that everyone has the ability to check our work.
-Eric Litke
Inauguration background: Our latest fact checks about Trump
A swirl of misinformation has surrounded President Donald Trump in the lead-up to his inauguration.
Social media users, for instance, have spread false and misleading claims about his ideas for U.S. takeovers of Greenland and the Panama Canal, the attempt on his life at a Pennsylvania rally in July 2024 and the first actions he’ll take when he becomes president for the second time.
Here are some of USA TODAY’s recent fact-checks related to Trump:
-Andre Byik
Catch up on our debate, convention fact-checks
We fact-checked key moments throughout the 2024 election cycle, including debates and the Republican and Democratic conventions. Catch up here on what was false, what was true and what was in between from Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Tim Walz and a host of others.
-Eric Litke
Inauguration background: Claims about the election
Donald Trump’s election spawned a wide variety of misinformation, as social media users made baseless claims about how his hush money conviction in New York could affect his ability to do the job of president, as well as if other nations would take combative postures in response to some of his foreign policy prescriptions.
Here are some of the false or misleading claims USA TODAY has debunked about Trump’s election and the response to it:
– Nate Trela
How we pick and research fact checks
Ever wonder how fact-checkers do their work? We’ve got you covered.
Check out our process explainer to see how we pick claims, research them and edit them. This includes a rundown of how we cover live events like tonight’s debate.
And if you’ve ever wondered who fact-checks the fact-checkers, you might want to read this op-ed explaining our emphasis on transparency. Because the answer is you! We use the format and approach precisely so that everyone has the ability to check our work.
-Eric Litke
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